Monday, February 29, 2016

Orwell's Final Warning

How utterly typical of Orwell to articulate his final thoughts for the future from such a critical standpoint. Nevertheless, this video is incredibly powerful, as it reveals Orwell visually months before he died. Readers observe his sickly appearance that no style of writing has the ability to convey. However, I don't necessarily consider the emotion that Orwell strikes through his responses as positive, for fans witness the cynical nature of their beloved author in his last days. Given that Orwell was hospitalized during, and died six months after, the video was created, it's deemed a 'last statement' of Orwell, often a 'deathbed appeal,' As if the illness within Orwell's physical face doesn't strike harm enough, Orwell's literary activism within his real voice--the last voice heard of Orwell--leaves an unsettling feeling for viewers. We hear him through word of mouth how he imagines life once he dies, in which his predictions provoke a profound fear for the viewers. I should say, rather, an underlying profound fear--because both he and the viewer are relying on this technological medium to convey the deeper meaning, or truth. When in fact, the deep truth Orwell articulates is his dismay in TV's impact on the lives of him and society, not to mention technology's potential consequences not yet risen.

Essentially, the headline 'final warning' says it all, as it outlines the rather threatening message Orwell echoes. No matter how sick, however, Orwell shows that this was and would be until death the most meaningful aspect of his life: writing for freedom. Except this time, he gets to say it out loud, in which he merely speaks as he were lyrically writing. The voice in Orwell's message not only emphasizes in the video, but all messages within his literary work, the prominent themes of Orwellian writing: 'intoxication of power'; 'thrill of victory'; 'sensation of trampling on an enemy whose helpless." Most significant to the video: 'if you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face forever.' His words resounding a mixture of stylistic diction, he ends--as Orwellian language often does--with simple but definite sentences, the recurring 'be' verbs, to ensure ultimate clarity for all viewers.